BTW, to get the bad end in 2-5, you need to fail on the very final present point (or I assume the three-way choice just before). Otherwise Vortex just declares Barok guilty as normal... which still doesn't really make sense, because IIRC you prove Vortex is the shinigami a few presents before that. I think there might be different dialogue for game overs before and after Jigoku's confession though?

Wait, really? That's surprising. I guess Nonstandard Game Overs for situations like this is a Yamazaki thing?

BTW, to get the bad end in 2-5, you need to fail on the very final present point (or I assume the three-way choice just before). Otherwise Vortex just declares Barok guilty as normal... which still doesn't really make sense, because IIRC you prove Vortex is the shinigami a few presents before that. I think there might be different dialogue for game overs before and after Jigoku's confession though?

Wait, really? That's surprising. I guess Nonstandard Game Overs for situations like this is a Yamazaki thing?

Also, could someone describe the Case 5 bad ending to me?

Spoiler: DGS2-5

Vortex basically just slams down the gavel and has all of the trial proceedings w/r/t the Professor case struck from the record. Then he gives a little speech about how this "darkness" is for London's sake, and that van Zieks should be swallowed up by that darkness, just like his brother, and declares him guilty.

Hey! My current life situation is [low-level internal screaming], so I may be slow to respond to things. Thanks for understanding!

5. I dunno, I didn't actually play the game, I only know everything from the videos and liveblogs.

One slightly more specific thing about question 2. Basically, I'd say the answer is technically "no".

Spoiler: Mild Spoilers but nothing specific

Case 2 is the only one with no major connections to the over-arching plot of the game. The only thing linking it in is the very last segment, after the trial is over. Case 2's actual plot is wholly unrelated to the game's overall story arc.

I've watched up to the very beginning of Case 4, and regarding Question 5: a character makes a pun on a Japanese word that sounds like their English name at one point. That's the closest I've seen to something really hard to localize. The moment makes no sense anyway, as it's established that all characters are speaking English in the London cases, and the character in question is English. Why would they make a Japanese-specific pun on their name?

Regarding clues relating to English, they do exist.

Spoiler: Specifics, obviously spoilers

In Case 1, the culprit having the same initials as the defendant is a plot point.

In Case 3, you're required to notice one character's signature, in English, on a piece of evidence at one point. You do have another piece of evidence with the same signature on it, so for a Japanese audience it's more presented as a matching puzzle.

Should also mention that Case 3 contains a newspaper written entirely in English, and it's all fully grammatical and makes sense. (Not much of it besides the headlines is relevant to the case though) Someone working on the game must have been fluent in English. (I would have preferred "Grim Reaper" rather than "Death Bringer" for Barok's "shinigami" title though.

Should also mention that Case 3 contains a newspaper written entirely in English, and it's all fully grammatical and makes sense. (Not much of it besides the headlines is relevant to the case though) Someone working on the game must have been fluent in English.

I'm convinced that was Janet Hsu. Her name is listed in the game's credits, after all.

Well, those are not translations, but romanizations: using the alphabet to (approximately) write down words from another language. There are always several accepted conventions to that, also for Japanese. It doesn't really matter which one you use, as long as you're consistent within the same body of text.

For example, the most common transliteration system you'll usually see (in newspapers articles; tv; articles that just happen to feature a Japanese name, etc.) does not differentiate between long and short vowels. So that'll be Ryu (and for example Tokyo and Osaka, which in reality do feature elongated vowels). Names on Japanese passports etc. also follow this custom. In academic articles however, it's common to indicate elongated vowels with a macron. So Ryū, Tōkyō and Ōsaka would be the norm there.

Ryuu is actually less common in general, but you'll often see it on the internet in relation because it does show it's an elongated vowel, and it's easier to type than using macrons all the time. People in the process of learning Japanese especially tend to favor this system, because it helps them remembering what the original Japanese word is supposed to be, especially in regards to the elongated Ō, of which there are two in Japanese (o'u, and o'o). But this system is seldomly used in official texts meant for publishing, as it's actually not easy to read for people w/o any knowledge of Japanese and romanization systems (it's not immediately clear to most people how an "ou" should be read, and how are they going to guess that "ou" and "oo" are supposed to be read in the same manner?).

"One dumbbell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumbbell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!" - The Valley of Fear

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